5 Healthyish Things, including cucumbers and fun funerals

Okay, so there’s a guy on TikTok who slices a full cucumber, tosses it in some dressing, adds some toppings, and now reaches nearly 6 million followers. I’m here for it and frankly just relieved the internet is sorta kinda maybe gravitating towards healthier foods. (Remember freakshakes/monster milkshakes? 🙃)

Anyway, Logan Moffitt suggests dozens of ways to prep a cuke, including a very viral Din Tai Fung-inspired one. He’s so popular that this trend has supposedly caused a cucumber shortage in Iceland and spiked FreshDirect cucumber sales nearly 200% year-over-year in NYC. Anyway, so much of my career has been about trying to get healthier things to enter the cultural zeitgeist so all I can say is slice on, cucumber guy.

One of the coolest, most forward-leaning features we built at Ness (my last startup, an ambitious health-first credit card company) was an HSA integration. It flagged eligible expenses as you spent and let you pay them down directly from your HSA account, thus removing them from your credit card bill.

And now our idea lives on! This week, Bilt Rewards (oh hey, only venture-backed consumer credit card success story of the last decade) announced a partnership with Walgreens that offers almost exactly this... and I'm thrilled to see it in the hands of people. The more easy and convenient it is to use HSAs, the more people can access and afford better things.

Shout out to lots of innovators in the consumer-facing HSA space—in particular Justin Mares & Calley Means at TrueMed, Ami Kumordzie at Sika, Alex Cyriac & Shobin Uralil at Lively, and more. And if you ever want my full rant on HSAs (not something I like, but sure wish I did), stay tuned.

It seems fairly obvious CEOs who lift would perform better than average. Prioritizing fitness is a great indication that they’ve got better judgment on how they spend their time, make decisions, and manage their overall (especially mental) health. 

That said, how Pieter figured out which CEOs lift (there’s a list in the tweet thread) doesn’t sound super scientific… and probably just skews to the more public-facing ones he follows on Instagram. But I love it and can only hope my next company helps continue this hockey stick trend. Plus seriously, I’d invest in this. 💪 

In the wake of actor Matthew Perry’s ketamine-related death, the DEA plans to crack down on anyone overprescribing the drug. I’ll admit ketamine sure seems to be rampant right now and its use is lacking in helpful regulations, rules, and restrictions (more on this here and here). But I do think there’s great evidence to support a future where ketamine makes a positive difference in people’s lives. 

Still… saying that the ketamine industry is to blame when Perry drowns in a pool is like saying it’s the beer industry's fault when the drunk driver crashes their car. That doesn't make much sense to me. 

And what makes even less sense is saying that ketamine abuse is on par with the opioid epidemic, as DEA administrator Anne Milgram suggested. I think this is a completely bullshit comparison, and very insulting to the tragic opioid epidemic that affects so many. Again, that doesn’t mean ketamine is perfect and shouldn’t have more regulations around its usage. But don’t be rude about it.

I’m into anything that can bring joy and levity to things that don’t deserve to be so sad and taboo. And the notion of reinventing topics around death is very promising to me. Guaranteed is a great example of this in transforming hospice care (Disclaimer: I’m an investor and big fan of CEO & Founder Jessica McGlory). Another example is Exit Here, a chic London-based funeral home (with a genius name) working to change how we celebrate the end of life.

I don’t know how much of a business opportunity there is in modernizing the funeral home. But if we can make our eventual death more of a celebration by having a hot pink casket or a coffin that looks like an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus, sign me up. 🙌